Eden Hill Journal

Comments, dreams, stories, and rantings from a middle-aged native of Maine living on a shoestring and a prayer in the woods of Maine. My portion of the family farm is to be known as Eden Hill Farm just because I want to call it that and because that's the closest thing to the truth that I could come up with. If you enjoy what I write, email me or make a comment. If you enjoy Eden Hill, come visit.

Sunday, September 23, 2018

Hidden

Just imagine, both China and Russia and for all we know Iran are already advancing these technologies while the zillionaires rich on oil want us to destroy their nations. Yet we are refusing to advance this technology ourselves.

Kavanaugh

I'm going to go out on a limb here and do some speculating...
I get anti-Trump emails on a regular basis from The Washington Post and in an email from them today there was this headline, "Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford moved 3,000 miles to reinvent her life. It wasn't far enough." It seems that she had told her husband, "I cannot live in this country if he's in the Supreme Court".
If this is true, I find it hard to believe that what she is saying is that she cannot live in a country where drunken seventeen year-old boys attempt to grope girls at teenage alcohol parties. I mean good luck finding that utopian feminist paradise in this world! OK so maybe if she submitted herself to the burka and lived in Saudi Arabia where a fifteen year-old girl discovered in that position would be stoned to death or something but you tell me where in the world drunk seventeen-year-old boys don't do outrageous things to fifteen-year-old girls foolish enough to hang out at alcohol parties. And I do mean foolish when I say foolish.
Girls that put themselves in these situations are nothing short of fools.
That said, I'm thinking that it wouldn't be very likely that a rational person would have to go to that much of an extreme to get away from Judge Kavanaugh. Why would any rational person insist on destroying the career and reputation of someone who groped her one time when she was drinking? And why would she need to leave the country if her ploy didn't work?
There has to be something else motivating her, don't you think?
But what?
It's not just the Pussy Hat paranoia about White males. That doesn't explain what she is feeling. She, a White female born in the U.S.A., would have to leave the country if another White male were on the Supreme Court? Not likely!
So what?

It does appear that this Ms. Ford is politically aligned with the Left and one of the primary objections the Left has been making about the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh is that he could vote to reverse the Supreme Court decision on a woman's right to have a safe abortion in the U.S.A.

What if, and this is just speculation, but what if this particular woman had at some earlier point in her life gotten pregnant and had an abortion and what if, as many suggest can happen, this woman had guilt feelings about what she had done to her unborn child and what if in an attempt to shift the blame and the guilt off of herself she blamed the Pro-Life Right for the guilt she felt? Then how would she feel about living in a country where abortion was not just shameful but illegal as well?

What might that motivate such a woman to do politically?

Now last time I knew a guy, no matter how virile and threatening he might be, can't get a girl pregnant by groping her. So she's not accusing him of getting her pregnant, not that I can see at least. So if she did somehow get herself knocked up it would have been in another situation with another guy. Maybe that would be a good place to start if she insists on pushing this thing too far.

"Have you ever had an abortion?"

"If so, when?"

"Who was the guy?"

"What were the circumstances?"

Not to mention the obvious questions:

"What were you doing at an alcohol party when you were fifteen years old!"

"How often did you do things like that?"

"Was that enough to stop you and knock some sense into your head or did you keep doing crap like that?"

"How many abortions did you wind up needing to have?"

"Did you ever take personal responsibility for the choices and mistakes you made?"

Of course maybe it's not her herself that she is concerned about. Maybe she never had to face an abortion herself. Maybe she's thinking of all the other young women who wind up in situations like this. But if so, why would she herself have to leave America if Kavanaugh became a Supreme Court judge?

Never again trust the Left unless you subscribe to this notion, "The end justifies the means."

Saturday, September 22, 2018

Tree Sound

So you've probably heard this one:

If a tree falls in the woods and there's nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound?

I first heard that when I was in 5th grade. It was a 5th grade teacher who asked me the question and she specifically asked me personally as though I should understand it and be able to intelligently answer it. My reaction was a bit different from that. I didn't say so but I thought this is some stupid teacher to ask a question this numb.

Later on in life I learned that at least some people seem to take this question seriously. It's not a science question. It masquerades as a philosophy question somehow or other the same way that assuming that there is no such thing as objective reality or for that matter God masquerades as philosophy. But in reality the tree question boils down to your personal definition of the word sound. Do you define sound as mechanical vibrations or do you define it as a perception in a person's mind?

I was just watching a video on YouTube about major transforming theories over the past hundred or so years in physics and there was a brief explanation of Schrodinger's cat which utilizes similar thinking.
It just dawned on me that if you think you have to be there and observe something in order for it to exist, you are some sort of a bad-ass twisted narcissist. For the rest of humanity, that tree is going to set up mechanical vibrations that we call sound. I guess for me, the hardest part of answering this question is understanding narcissism.

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

A FewThoughts on China

China this. China that. All this talk about China lately. China's imperial ambitions in the Pacific. China's military growth. The Chinese Navy. Chinese 5th generation fighter jets. China's space ambitions. Chinese steel and aluminum. Chinese sweat shops and child labor. Apple. Intel. Chinese high tech and the theft of intellectual property rights (abuse of patents and trademarks). Chinese support of North Korea which has openly threatened nuclear attack against the United States. The list goes on and on.

To me it seems that all these concerns are a direct result of one simple thing:
American dependence on Chinese production and cheap labor.

In other words, why the hell do we keep buying all our stuff from China? Why are we sending China so much of our wealth and strength? They're Communists for Christ's sake!

Yet another way to say this is why the hell do we keep shopping at Walmart?

That is overstating it I know. You don't have to shop at Walmart to find cheap tools that rust and break easily. I can go to my local NAPA and buy brake rotors for my car that rust at the very thought of touching damp air not to mention what happens to them in the winter on Maine's salted roads, rotors that wear down quickly and warp every chance they get.

Nobody ever believes me when I say this but this all got started during the Ronald Reagan administration back in the 1980's. That's when America, in the interest of breaking the back of the unions representing American production workers started promoting outsourcing and somehow convinced the population that "Made in the U.S.A." was invalid.

We're just beginning to wake up and realize our mistake but let me ask you this:

Are you still spending your hard-earned wages at Walmart? Are you still buying cheap junk with the word "China" stamped on it? Do you have some sort of sick death wish about America?

Monday, September 10, 2018

Little Moose Mountain

One of our family's favorite local hikes is the trail from the trailhead on Maine Route 15 just north of Greenville up the east side of Little Moose Mountain (formerly and still locally known as Little Squaw). There's a new trailhead on a short gravel road off Route 15 close to Greenville Junction. There's the trailhead at the Moose Mountain Inn, formerly the Greenwood Motel. There's a third trailhead that accesses the back side of the mountain as well as Big and Little Moose Ponds.
My wife had the day off today so we ventured up the east side of the mountain from the new trailhead. Once before this summer I had walked the new section of trail but this was the first time she had tried it. Back when our kids were young, oh maybe thirty years ago or so, we used to frequent this trail, which is only itself about thirty years old, from the Greenwood Motel trailhead. It's not a steep climb for the most part but it's a rugged though well-maintained rustic trail, a hiking trail in the Maine tradition.

What makes this trail special for me is that way back when the trail was first laid out I did some exploring and I found my way to the ledge near the top of the mountain that is clearly seen from Greenville. The trail passes the base of this ledge but for some odd reason just keeps on going with no side trail covering the hundred yards or so of bushwhacking needed to get to the lookout. From this lookout there is a panoramic view from Little and Big Spencer Mountains to the northeast sweeping down Moosehead Lake and the mountains to the east and on south past Greenville to Boarstone Mountain to the southeast, continuing on along the mountain-free horizon to the south. Straight east from the mountain at this lookout is Pritham Avenue and the entire town of Greenville with Greenville Junction only a mile and a half distant. Perched up here you can watch and even hear the traffic from Greenville to Greenville Junction while witnessing a view that almost nobody else even knows about, let alone gets to see. It's my kind of place.

I'll tell you my secret way to get there.

After beating yourself half to death hiking the trail along the long ridgeline from the highway, you come to an abrupt drop in the trail followed by a short level area with tons of moss off to your left and then up a steep section of trail with a very steep ledge outcropping of rock on your right. The overlook is directly above you at this point but don't be tempted to go straight up to it. Stay on the trail until it levels out again. Just as the trail levels out it passes between two fairly young white birch trees. You can think of those two trees as your secret marker, the point where your bushwhacking begins.
Leaving the trail, double back to your right but continue uphill. Avoid the steep uphill section to your left and the steep downhill section to your right. Unfortunately there are two large softwood blow-downs smack dab in the middle of the easiest route. Today we went up by going to the right around the tops but came back down around the stumps so either path past these blowdowns works. Continue up the short uphill grade beyond these blowdowns until the terrain levels off. It's all woods up here so you won't see any views until you find the lookout. No more than a hundred feet past this point, probably more like fifty to seventy five feet, see if you can wind your way downward to your right through a mess of small blowdowns and voila! There you are! There's the lookout. But it is one of those you can't see it till you're right there places so be prepared to do a little searching.
To stay oriented remember one thing. This overlook is directly above where you just were when you were back on the trail when this ledge was directly above your right shoulder. In fact - and don't do this! - if you tossed something off this lookout it would land in the trail fifty or so feet below you.

By the way, I find it mesmerizing on a calm day to sit on this lookout and watch the traffic and boats and airplanes come and go.
Enjoy!
But don't throw any rocks, OK? I might be on the trail below you!